Well, it's a plausible suggestion. Richard Miniter says that the Democrats may be using an "unprecedented combination of legislative procedures" to push the immigration bill through the Senate--this afternoon!

I haven't seen this anywhere else and have no idea whether Richard is right or not, but it's worth a look.

UPDATE: It sounds like Miniter was right. This is from a press release by Senator Jim DeMint:

Senator Reid has been trying to portray this immigration nightmare as solely the responsibility of President Bush, but today we saw just how bad Reid wants it. He used his power as Majority Leader to manipulate and abuse the rules of the Senate to ram this bill down our throats. He has set up a process that guarantees votes on a few amendments while blocking all others. This has never been done before, and it’s the most heavy-handed and rigged thing I have ever seen. This bill may have Ted Kennedy’s name on it but it belongs to Harry Reid now.

After the Senate voted to cut off debate on the question of whether to resurrect the Senate immigration bill, Senator Reid set up unique debate process that guarantees votes several hand-picked amendments but blocks consideration of all others. Senator Reid used a parliamentary tool called a “clay pigeon” to divide a giant amendment into multiple amendments and then moved to block all others. No other member of the Senate besides Reid could have accomplished all of this without being stopped by another Senator. No other Majority Leader in history has done this.

*** Republicans better wake up soon or they can expect Senator Reid to use this tactic in the future to raise taxes, increase spending, and weaken our national security.

Stay tuned.

FURTHER UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has the text of the 300-plus page Reid amendment here.

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Posted by John at 02:42 PM  |    |